Celebrate the People & the Adventures 2018

CELEBRATING Startups, mentors, the people and the adventures we have taken together, I celebrate you.

As a mentor in the startup ecosystem I am always in awe of the people I have had the honour to work with and for the adventure, we go on together. Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year, and as the year gradually begins to drop the curtains on a lot of beautiful experiences, it seems like a pretty good time to reflect on the people you met, bridges you built and adventures you had in the past 12 months.

As I travel I find that the thing that makes people most uncomfortable is not being able to place where you are from, why you are in their community and what in it for them. And once they know you travel full time then the next question is “Where’s your favourite place in the world?” I have spent my life travelling, I often get asked this question. And my response is always…

“It’s not about the place; it is always about the people and the experience you create.”

As
you reflect on the year, it might be worth it to look back at the interactions
and connections you made this year.

Mark Phillips Business in Bare Feet Founder, Keeley and Simon from Artizan GF Bakery and Geoff from Startup Capricorn QLD

It’s mentally satisfying to stop and celebrate those interactions you had, and it’ll help you appreciate life more. If you haven’t done this yet, it’s never too late to recognise the personal connections, the relationships built.

I’ll be sharing with you my experiences and
thought-provoking ideas on how best to celebrate the people and the adventures
that made 2018 worthwhile.

MY 2018 EXPERIENCE AT A GLANCE

Another year of full-time travel in 2018 and it has been a great year that’s packed with a lot of adventure. This year had my partner and I met with hubs and incubators all over the world, from Canberra, Boulder Colorado, Denver, Silicon Valley, San Francisco LA, Nth Carolina, Bundaberg, Emerald, Cairns, Yeppoon, Rockhampton, Blackwater, Bowen, Owensville, Sydney, Mackay, Airlie Beach, Atherton Tablelands, Cape York, Brisbane, Toowoomba and even Hamilton Island. The list is endless, and I’ll be needing five more blog posts to list them all.

Yeah
I know, that’s a lot of places in one year. But it’s not just the places that are fascinating; it’s because we were able to connect with a lot of really amazing
people and the pods of innovation that we’re involved in. This interaction made us a lot more
effective.

We
embarked on a mission to connect small regional towns, small businesses and startups.
To help them innovate in business and
stay relevant globally. Using the appropriate startup techniques, we can
support startups, run hackathons, mentoring, workshops, etc.

Drew Houston once said…

“Instead of trying to make life perfect, give yourself the freedom to make it an adventure and go ever upward.”

As we travelled this year, we took advantage of the adventure and discovered where we are most effective in connecting with the people and community, even in the most remote areas.

It’s
important to understand that as we travel, we have the potential abilities to
reconnect and reignite conversation and togetherness in some communities that,
for some unknown reason were unable to do otherwise.

On
our travels, we were able to support both private and government startup hubs,
produce incubation programs and provide the necessary mentorship where we were
needed. We worked hard to keep their regions connected with what’s happening
around the world.

One fact remains that without people, your
year would’ve sucked. That’s why it’s important
for you to take notice of the people you had the pleasure to meet and connect with.

When you look back on your year, you
realize that the people are everything, they are the reason you do what you do.
They support you, and they’re a global
community.

When next you look at your LinkedIn network,
be grateful for each and everyone and the experience you had with each other,
both good and bad. Both experiences taught you something new about yourself or
opened your mind to something new. Celebrate these encounters, connections, and collaborations.

It’s important to celebrate the people I
had the pleasure to work with, all the communities I had the pleasure to connect with, thanking them for the
adventure, collaboration, courage and respect they shared with me along the
way.

I look back at the regional towns where we
made an impact by mentoring businesses and
supporting small businesses, and I celebrate them for the courage to be in business
and embrace our startup concepts

Celebrate
What You Want To See More Of.

When I look back on the adventures of the
year, I am truly grateful for it all. To
experience, support and be supported by other leaders and given great
opportunities. Indeed, I am genuinely excited
to serve the startup ecosystem.

As Tom Peters said, “Celebrate what you want to see more of.” All this exciting
adventure has been due to saying ‘Yes’
to the adventures and surrounding myself
with like-minded people who are all striving for the same thing, to enhance
businesses using the power of innovation.

STAYING RELEVANT IN SMALL BUSINESS WITH INNOVATION IN REGIONAL AUSTRALIA.

Facebook is available to anyone with a computer and internet connection. It is a tool used for personal expression and business innovation and targeted marketing. Incredible really, it’s the easiest time in history to start a business if you know how to use the tools.

Innovation, an overused word that makes me want to vomit because I have heard it more times. But what really is innovation?

“Innovation distinguishes
between a leader and a follower,” Steve
Jobs.

Innovation is crucial to our country and
continuing success of any organization, community or business. It’s a buzzword for business
and is slightly overused, don’t you think?
But what exactly is innovation and how will it help small businesses stay
relevant in today’s fast-paced and ever-shifting economy? How do you stay
relevant and avoid being that business that closes the doors after 20 years or
more of a successful business? Your answers
are just below:

Start To Observe Behaviors.

Meeting with Arieanne Defazio Founder of Kitables Boulder Colorado for her honest version of being a Startup Founder and whats important to survive

We can no longer ignore the importance of
human behavior because machines are now learning from us, but that’s a whole
other conversation for another day.

Team feedback, company culture of the
business and how people interact with your product are important behaviors to observe.

Businesses are changing so rapidly, the
revolution of technology is disrupting and altering our behavior and the
different ways we can do business. If there’s no stopping to observe the
transformation of behaviors and recognition of what these changes could mean
for your business, your previously successful business enterprise might be on a
crash course sooner than you know it.

If you travel through regional Australia, you’ll
see creativity and innovation everywhere, like Swarm Farm Robotics in Emerald
and Artemis Submersible Robotics in Airlie Beach Qld, and so many more.

Changing The Way We Do Processes.

I was recently at the Future Agritech
Challenge in Atherton Table Lands, and
that was where I observed innovation at its best, and I salute everyone who participated.

Build and Brews with Kittables CO on the Startup Cataylist Community Leaders Mission USA 2018

It was a remarkable
experience for me as a startup mentor to see established
startups unpack what they had built in such intricate detail. Watching the
founders of the participating companies pitch their startups all weekend and
explaining in depth what problems they solve was exhilarating. The one company
that has the best knowledge of their product and spoke with confidence won the
game, and that was Swarm Farm Robotics.

They were truly
advanced in their vision for how they help change the way we do the process of
farming. Make no mistake; it was no
overnight success for them. It was a long hard journey with lots and lots of
mistakes and learning. Now they emerge as proud winners ready to represent
Australia in Greece for the World Future Agritech Challenge in May 2019.

Now that achievement is definitely worth celebrating, and I wish them a grand adventure for the next
stage. It was a demonstration of true
courage by all who had participated.

UNDERSTANDING
THE MEANING OF TRUE COURAGE.

The
biggest lesson to learn from the above challenge was courage, true
courage. Despite the fact that they all knew only one winner would emerge, the
other participants still went ahead with full throttle. There were however not
many participants, willing to put themselves through the paces to take the
chance and embark on this journey of changing the way things are done.

I celebrate you!

There
just doesn’t seem to be enough hunger in
people to want to change the way we experience industry and make it better
through innovation.

Bob Iger said, “The
heart and soul of
a company is creativity and innovation.”
We are often too focused and comfortable with solving problems in our local
community, and that’s fantastic, but
imagine if we sought to solve the same problem in communities all over the world.

The
rest of the world is waiting for us to produce more, they want more. We are world-class producers, and we can do more to boost the economy through innovation. That’s
true courage.